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SIPAnews spring 2000 / VOLUME XIiI NO.2 1 From the Dean Lisa Anderson reports back from a SIPA-sponsored conference in Mexico City. 2 Faculty Forum Mahmood Mamdani believes the stage is set for a new way of studying Africa. 3 Alumni Forum Diana Bruce Oosterveld (’97 MPA) helps New Yorkers gain access to Medicaid. 4 Dear SIPA Eddie Brown (’99 MIA) lives in the “worst place in the world” and loves it. 5 Faculty Profile Peter Danchin returns to South Africa to help shape post-apartheid Constitution. 6 Alumni pay debt of gratitude by donating their time and talents to SIPA. 8 EPD students travel to Kosovo to help former combatants launch new lives. 9 8 MIA Program News Race relations forum highlights SIPA’s first Diversity Week. 10 MPA Program News 12 Schoolwide News 13 14 Faculty News 16 Alumni News New Alumni Director Nancy Riedl urges grads to keep in touch. 22 Class Notes It was a virtuoso display of the breadth and sophistica- tion of SIPA’s capacities in policy analysis. From the Dean: Lisa Anderson SIPA’s Bond with Mexico: Qué Viva! very so often, something debate about policy among the schol- that “globalization” and “informal happens that epitomizes ars and practitioners from SIPA, economy” aren’t any easier to define in much of what makes my CIDE, and the worlds of public policy Spanish than in English? Or that the job irresistibly gratifying. in both New York and Mexico City. March presidential elections in Taiwan One of those moments Columbia contributed faculty and were closely followed in Mexico, as occurred at the end of practitioners who work on interna- they consider the possibility that the EMarch in Mexico City, when I realized tional economic policy, urban public longtime ruling party might lose the that our nearly year’s worth of work on management, international migration, presidency in elections scheduled for the SIPA-sponsored conference, political corruption, environment pol- July? “Mexico on the Threshold of a New icy, political consulting, and Latin We did not resolve all of the Century,” had paid off in multiple American politics, crime and policing. dilemmas which face Mexico at the ways. It was a virtuoso display of the breadth beginning of the 21st century, but I The conference was the brain- and sophistication of SIPA’s capacities suspect that our conference did con- child of several Mexican alumni of in policy analysis. It was not, however, tribute a few good ideas to the ongo- SIPA, and the Columbia University merely a traveling show-and-tell. We ing discussions. Equally importantly, Alumni Association of Mexico was one were joined by our Mexican counter- we cemented our ties with a vibrant of its co-sponsors, along with the parts—academics who work on eco- and growing alumni community in office of University Development and nomic policy and urban policy as well Mexico, a group that makes up a non- Alumni Relations, the Institute of as managers, analysts and activists from trivial element in the country’s policy Latin American Studies here at SIPA, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and elite. and the Centro de Investigación y Communications and Transport, the It is my hope that we will con- Docencias Económicas (CIDE), a dis- Federal Election Institute, the Central tinue to be a resource for all our tinguished social science research and Bank and Mexico City government. alumni long after they leave Morning- education institute in Mexico City. Many of the Mexican panelists were side Heights: a source of research and CIDE’s participation was facilitated by alumni, who knew well the remarkable ideas, of moral support and even of the several Columbia alumni in its insights born in mixing academic conviviality and friendship. This con- administration; coverage of the confer- research and policy analysis, from their ference demonstrated the enormous ence by TVAzteca was arranged by a days at SIPA. They joined—indeed, gratifications in that role, and it is a Columbia alumnus; financial sponsor- often provoked—the debates and dis- model I hope we will be able to export ship by Booz, Allen & Hamilton’s cussions that spilled out of the audito- well beyond Mexico. All we will need Mexico office was secured by yet rium during the coffee breaks as we are alumni as talented and dedicated as another alumnus. examined the nature of capital and Hector de la Cruz, Alejandro The event produced by all these labor flows between the United States Echegaray, Raphael Freyre, Feliciano partners was remarkable. CIDE’s and Mexico, the sustainability of urban Garciarramos, Beatriz Leycegui, Fran- beautiful new auditorium was an ideal development, the dilemmas of main- cisco Meré, Federico Rublí, Luis Car- site, and the local arrangements were taining public security, and the los Ugalde, and Abraham Zamora— extraordinarily thorough and thought- prospects for democratic government and above all, Gustavo Cano, who ful—even the weather cooperated. An and economic development in 21st served as the tireless and ever-smiling elegant reception for alumni and century Mexico. conference coordinator. I am proud to friends of Columbia provided an occa- Did you know that 20 million be associated with them and with their sion for socializing and—as always— people with roots in Mexico live in the school. networking! United States? Or that the populations But, without a doubt, the most of Mexico City and New York repre- remarkable aspect of the entire meet- sent one in 10 of the world’s city ing was the intellectual exchange and dwellers? Does it surprise you to learn SIPAnews 1 Faculty Forum: Mahmood Mamdani Re-Configuring the Study of Africa Ethiopia, all “closely connected with Council (HSRC) of South Africa fol- Asia;” and finally, “Africa Proper,” the lowed suit. source of slaves debased in the Euro- The new period poses a double pean imagination as “the land of child- challenge to the institutional study of hood . lying beyond conscious his- Africa. The first stems from the legacy tory . enveloped in the dark mantle of slavery, colonialism and apartheid, of Night.” one that has crystallized the institu- The Hegelian notion of “Africa tional boundaries of African study as Proper” as sub-Saharan Africa was different from the geographical modified in the era of colonialism and boundaries of Africa. The second the Cold War. The more “apartheid” stems from the legacy of the Cold War, South Africa came to be seen as an which shaped a tradition of area studies exceptional experience, the more that tended to treat the geographical Africa came to be identified racially boundaries of continental “areas” into and geographically: racially with Negro boundaries of knowledge. (Bantu) Africa and geographically with I would like to suggest a tentative middle Africa, the land between the answer to this double dilemma. The ew of us have the privilege Sahara and the Kalahari. This is the first is to redefine the institutional of naming ourselves. Typi- notion of Africa that came to be boundaries of African Studies to coin- cally, naming is done by inscribed in the academy, not only in cide with the geographical boundaries others. Africa was a Roman Europe but also in the United States of continental Africa and surrounding name, the name by which and, indeed, in apartheid South Africa. islands. The second is to treat these Rome called its southern- Even today, the academic preoccupa- boundaries as both shifting in time and Fmost province, what we today call tion of institutes of African studies in porous at any point in time. By doing North Africa. the United States, including that of so, we would stop taking geography as The next big shift in the meaning Columbia University, is not with the a permanent artifact, a historical given, of Africa came with the slave trade. African continent, but with sub-Saha- and rather treat it as a historical prod- Both the trans-Saharan and trans- ran Africa. uct that continues to be fluid. Indian Ocean slave trade identified If the end of colonialism did not If the end of the Cold War has set with Arabs, and the trans-Atlantic slave pose this question sharply, then the the stage for a single global process— trade identified with Europeans. In the simultaneous end of the Cold War and globalization—then one needs to imagination of those who debased apartheid certainly underlines the beware before turning globalization humanity in Africa through the slave necessity to review a tradition that into a one-sided preoccupation that The new period poses trade, Africa became identified socially originated in the period of slavery and dispenses with the local in the name of a double challenge to with Negro Africa and physically with was institutionalized under successive the universal. Since globalization can sub-Saharan Africa. Instead of the doses of colonialism, the Cold War and only be perceived, defined and, indeed, the institutional study bridge it had been between lands to its apartheid. It is worth recalling that the shaped from a local vantage point, the north and south, the Sahara was now first significant departure from this tra- recognition of global trends should be of Africa. seen as a great civilizational barrier. dition came in the post-colonial reason not to downplay area studies as Arabs called the land to the south African academy. Founded by social local knowledge. It should, rather, lead of the Sahara “Bilad-as-Sudan,” the science faculties inside Africa, the to making the boundaries of areas suf- land of the black people. As the Council for the Development of Social ficiently porous to problematize the Atlantic slave trade gathered steam, Research in Africa (CODESRIA) relationship between the local and the Europeans followed suit.